Kalk Bay - Man in a white shirt

Kalk Bay - Man in white Shirt
Oil on Board
15 cm x 20 cm

Kalk Bay is a quint little harbor in False Bay, Cape Town. The harbor wall is a popular walk way for tourists and locals, this man is probably a local acting like a tourist.

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Chaeli Champaign

Well the Chaeli campaign is over for this year - we've raised tens of thousands of rands (still counting) and we had a lot of fun!

We started in Hermanus (see the sun rising behind us!) and cycled through to Stellenbosch on Friday - the ride took nearly 8 hours; which is a very long time, but we were a social group riding with people who had never ridden long distance before. They did very well! (122km in total)

The ride was beautiful (as you can see in the pictures)

The Frenchman smiling at you in the center photo is Jeremie Dupont; he's setting out for Paris in October with girlfriend Charlene Dickson.

You can see all the details of where they are going here.

The chap behind him is Deon, my friend and colleague.

Deon and I will probably ride with Jeremie and Charlene for the first few hundred Km. I'm looking forward to it!

Saturday we rode from Stellenbosch to Cape Town in the rain! (70km)

Sunday was the big day - the Cape Argus - 109km in the wind! It was hell!

In total just on 300Km and nearly 16 hours on the saddle!

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The sleeping coach

The sleeping coach

Felt tipped pen on paper

As I've mentioned before, there are three main things people do on the train; sleep, read and text.

These two were complete strangers in that they did not know each other, and yet they were a perfect match in habit - within minutes of sitting down both their heads were nodding and snoring in unison.

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Westcoast silos - a revision

Oil on Board

20 cm x 15 cm

I've posted this painting before (here) but as it's been standing on my shelf I've had this feeling that I need to do something to fix it... and I did...

See if you can spot the difference.


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Journal of a painting I - Coffee on a winter's beach

This post is aimed at the budding artist and anyone that's interested in the process of creating art.

I've been asked about the method behind the painting, so here's step one to how I go about completing a painting, so here's step one in a short painting tutorial - a basic "method of painting."

The start:
It is very seldom that I start a painting without a planing phase - I've taken to doing my composition sketches in pen. You can see that the sketch is kept loose with no attempt at detail.

Composition sketch - Coffee on a winter's beach
Felt tipped pen on paper

The Composition:
The frame around the sketch was added afterwords while I was deciding on the composition.
There are a couple of pencil lines that I added afterwords as markers while I transferred the sketch to the canvas.
First are the diagonal lines that cross through the center of the figure - the center of the drawing gives me a coordinate that I can easily mark off on the canvas.
Also you can see how the one diagonal flows along the slant of the figure - it's pleasing to the eye.

There are two vertical lines - these are in the third positions (if you divide the width into three you'd get these positions)
There's a rule of thirds in composition which recommends that key points in your composition should be on the third lines - in this case the knees and the body are on the thirds.

The horizontal line breaks the rule of thirds - its the halfway mark for the vertical. I'm not sure if I'm breaking rules here, but it works. The main part of the figure is central.

Once I've made these line I make the same markings on the canvas, then I fill in the picture using these reference points as markers - it becomes a join the dots exercise.

Here's the painted sketch before the block in begins:

Painted sketch - Coffee on a winter's beach
painted with a thinned solution of turps and burnt sienna

As you can see, the initial painted sketch is even rougher than the pen sketch. (Also you'll see that I missed the third position for the knees - I'll end up paying for that mistake later on...)

In the next post I'll show you the block in phase.

Coffee on a winter’s beach - Oil Painting

Oil on Board
21 cm x 25 cm

On the same day as the beach couple strolled out along the beach hand in hand this lady had made herself comfortable in her camping chair. The day was far from beach weather, but it was the best weather we’d had in a long time – after weeks of rain this day of partially cloudy with scattered sunshine was the best day of the month... and it was weekend!

The beach was busy; a motley crew of people were attracted to the sea for whatever flimsy reason (I can't remember why we were there) – one thing we had in common was that we all had our best winter woollies with us, either wearing it or tucked under our arms… and some of us had coffee, a whole thermos of it…

We fled the beach an hour later as thick, dark clouds headed towards us, we gave up the beach for our own coffee in front of the fire at home.

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Reclining Figure – Red hair and creamy skin

Reclining Figure
Oil on Board
21 cm x 25cm

We’ve had this model sitting for us before, but I have not published a painting of her yet (still need to do some touching up) - I did publish a pen sketch of her a couple of weeks back - see the sketch here.

She’s got longish, curly red hair, creamy white skin and she sits beautifully… and for some reason I am very pleased with the way her knees were captured. There’s more detail about the painting and a bigger image over at my figure study blog.

It's got a similar feel to the Girl on a Persian carpet from last year.



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Sleeper on the train - pen sketch

Sleeper - Pen sketch
felt tipped pen on paper

As I've mentioned before; sleeping is one of the most favored pastimes on the train, especially on a winter's evening. What's nice about the sleepers is that they sit still for longer than 5 minutes.... well mostly.

This was a typical evening on the train, it was late (about 6:30pm) and the end of a long day at the office. I felt the same way, I wanted to snuggle in and sleep, but I have a fear of waking up in the train terminal in the middle of the night with no way of getting home, or worst waking up with drool dripping from your chin and three strangers staring at you...

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Sleeper on the train - pen sketch

Pen sketch - sleeper on the train
Pen on Paper
Sketch book

I carry my sketch book with me all the time - there's mostly only three things that people do on the train: read, text or sleep.

This lady tucked herself in, clutching her bag with her hood pulled up as high as possible and crashed.

This as with all the sketches in my book, is done with felt tipped pen and the drawing is done quickly (under 10 minutes)

The thinker - Pen sketch by Stephen Scott

The Thinker - concept sketch
Pen on paper
10 cm x 10 cm

I had a bit of time to kill while waiting outside home affairs the other day, it seems this guy had as much time as he wanted. He calmly pondered life from his perch on the steps of a utility entrance while we scurried around stressing about ques and bureaucracy!



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Waiting on the station Mk II - Oil painting

Waiting on the station

Oil on Board
21 cm x 26 cm

I've posted this painting before, in it's unfinished state (here) - it sat on my desk for a long time, it needed something... and I was not sure what...

I finished it last week and posted it for sale a few hours ago.

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Waiting at the station - oil painting by Stephen Scott

Publish Post

Waiting for the Train
Oil on Board
21cm x 25 cm

This is another composite picture... a week ago I did a quick sketch while waiting for the train at Claremont station. The sketch was of a man dressed in blue, sitting on a bench, in the background was the shadow of the overhead walkway.

It was a < 1 minute sketch, but I liked the composition so I did a warm-up painting using the sketch as a reference - a quick 10min painting which concentrated on tone and without pretending to be a real painting. I wished that I had had a camera with me...

Then I went to Karin Jurick's blog - the latest image was so similar that I just had to use it to fill the void left by not having a camera with me.

See paintings from the other artists for the challenge at DSDF.

Pink Bikini - oil on board

Pink Bikini
Oil on board
20cm x 15cm
SOLD

I've cheated here... or is it more a case of artistic license? The figure here never existed as is, it is a composite of a few reference photos with the gaps filled by my imagination. The painting was an exercise in light and painting with tones.
I enjoyed the contrast of the bright blue sky against the warm flesh tones of the sunlight figure... or is it the other way around?

Since this is not a nude in the proper sense of nudes; I've posted it here; and on the 500Nudes blog.

White Cat - Oil painting on canvas board

White Cat
21cm x 25cm Oil on board

I've posted the progression of 'white cat' before (here) and in that post I said I had to stop because the paint was simply too wet... well after two weeks all I added were the highlights to the eyes... worth the wait.

Beach Couple - oil on board

Beach Couple
Oil on Board
21cm x 25 cm
SOLD

We went down to the beach despite the miserable weather - I think we were hoping to see whales (we did not). What we did see were some odd folks, I suppose like us, that were out on the beach with clouds looming behind us.

The sun came out and warmed us for a while, but with the sun cam the wind - a perfect day for bed and a book, yet we were out at the cold waters edge.

I got some great reference photos though... this is the first painting from those photos.

This couple, must have been in their seventies, strolled out along the beach, then stood for ages watching the waves come in. As they walked on it was hand in hand - I wonder how long they've been lovers for?

Model Standing - Alla Prima

[image moved to my figure study site: 500Nudes.]

Model Standing - Alla Prima
Oil on canvas - 25cm x 36cm

This is from the archives - which in my case is a pile of paintings that have been stacked away in a dark cupboard, mostly of unfinished paintings and paintings that desperately deserve to be shredded... finding this one was a nice little surprise.

The model for this painting was a lovely mother of one in her early thirties, she decided she wanted to try modeling for an artist group - we were very happy that she chose us. She has a lovely figure and a very pleasant manor.

The paint on here is very thin on a canvas roughly primed with gesso, it's the texture in the gesso that you see, not really the brush strokes.

The painting was completed in one two hour session so the size was a perfect fit for the amount of painting time I had available, any bigger and it would have looked incomplete - smaller and it would have looked overworked.

Onion - Oil on canvas board

Onion
Oil on Canvas Board
21cm x 23cm

I can't write the word 'onion' without thinking of my father - when I was a kid there was a silly joke in a kids book; what is an Oz-oz the joke asks... the answer is of course an onion with all it's letters turned sideways - it's all in the font.

I did this little painting as an exercise in simplicity, I wanted efficiency in brush strokes, bold brushwork, perfect colours... I got sidetracked and stuck to my normal little 'licks' of the paint brush... and I liked it!

It's not what I set out to do, but I have to ask myself what I was thinking - the style I set out to mimick is not mine, and it's not in my personality. This last year I've spent trying new things and I've made a lot of mistakes and churned out a lot of crap that I'm not willing to show anyone, while I have works going back a couple of years that I'm very fond of.

It's time to go back to doing what I know.

White Cat - Oil painting

White Cat - painting in progress
Oil on Canvas board

I could not carry on with it, the paint was simply too wet to continue... there is probably about ten minutes work still to be done, but it has to wait a day or two.

I've spent a bit of time ruining a bunch of paintings, nothing seems to be working at the moment, so it's great to have this small win.

Different Strokes from Different Folks

Different Strokes...

This little painting was done in response to Karin Jurick's challenge on her blog: Different Strokes from Different Folks - She puts out a photo as a challenge, artists then respond to the challenge by painting an interpretation of that photo and then posting the painting to her site.

This week we're working from a black and white photo of a landscape somewhere in Pennsylvania, the idea is to fill in colour from your imagination - I've given it a South African feel, since I have no idea what the landscape looks like.

Girl Walking

Girl Walking
Oil on Masonite
150mm x 180mm
Click here To Bid

As with many of my paintings, this painting was done in the studio from a photo taken on the streets of Cape Town.
This girl was walking at a brisk pace through the suburbs where I live. I captured this image as she walked past a neighbor's wall with the midday sun filtering through the tree branches.
Capturing the light flitering through those branches was interesting - it's amazing how easy it is to completely mess up something that looks so easy.